


Our Great Glory and Our Great Tragedy

by Helholden



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: ADWD spoilers, ASOS Spoilers, Angst, F/M, Gen, Multi, Platonic Romance, Romance, Unrequited Love, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-29
Updated: 2013-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 20:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/739845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Helholden/pseuds/Helholden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy.” Seven vignettes on love, covering devotion, passion, longing, honesty, loyalty, understanding, and respect. Some are a little vague, some are straightforward, and some just barely touch the surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Great Glory and Our Great Tragedy

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this all at once on the fly based on a small smidgeon of an idea. Unbeta'ed for the moment, but I will check it later on for, er, errors. ;)

*

 

“ _What is honor compared to a woman’s love? What is duty against the feel of a newborn son in your arms… or the memory of a brother’s smile? Wind and words. Wind and words. We are only human, and the gods have fashioned us for love. That is our great glory, and our great tragedy_.”

— Maester Aemon to Jon Snow, A Game of Thrones  


_i. devotion_

 

“I will have your allegiance, or I will have your death,” Daenerys announced fiercely, the fire alight in her eyes and her voice carrying the same thunder of the storms above Dragonstone that brought her into this world. The whole crowd watched on in anticipation, almost too afraid to speak lest they miss what was happening.

 

Jorah remained on his knee, unable to raise his eyes to meet her gaze. He was a dirty, tattered, and bruised version of his old self. A demon tattoo had been branded on his face, which was swollen and barely recognizable from where Dany sat in her high chair. He looked absolutely pitiful, and he didn’t have the same fight in him as he once had before.

 

He was a broken man now. His pride and dignity were gone. Dany almost felt sorry for him, but she forced herself to hold it back. _My bear_ , she thought. _My great bear in ruins_ . . .

 

“I will die for you then, _Khaleesi_ , if that is what I must do to serve you.”

 

The crowd began to jeer and hoot and holler. Dany raised a slender arm, and the noises ceased. She could choose to end his life. It was within her power, but this man before her was of something she had never seen before. Betrayer, and yet he could not leave her side without losing all.

 

He came crawling back. Defeated, broken, but he came back.

 

“You are devoted, Ser Jorah,” Dany said so softly, the wind carrying her voice only to him. “Of all your cruel deeds and treacheries, your heart leads you ever to me.”

 

He remained bowed, but she saw the way his back shook with quiet sobs. Dany held out her hand.

 

“Look up, Ser Jorah,” she said, louder this time. “Look up, and accept your Queen.”

 

He raised his battered and branded face, silent silver tears trickling down his cheeks, and accepted her hand. Ser Jorah kissed the delicate skin, but did not grasp her hand in his or act too bold. Dany rose from her seat and held out her arms.

 

“Come to me, my bear,” Dany told him gently. “I give you leave to embrace me.”

 

Ser Jorah, still on his knee, leaned into her, his arms coming around her waist to embrace her. His tears wet her dress, but she did not care. _Oh, how I have missed you_ , Dany thought. She had missed his wise counsel. She had missed his fiery looks. She had even missed his jealousy, his wrath. She had also missed his kindness and his devotion most of all.

 

Dany’s hand stroked his hair as she looked out among the crowd.

 

“I forgive Ser Jorah his crimes,” she cried out. “Let no one say Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen is not a merciful queen.”

 

 

 

_ii. passion_

 

“Give it _back_ to me!” Arya snapped, darting out one hand to grab her practice sword from Gendry’s grasp, but he slid away just in time to escape her. He was bigger than her, but he was just as quick. Every two steps forward she took, he was always two steps ahead of her.

 

“You’re going to have to _catch_ it first,” Gendry shot back, tossing it from one hand to the other. He backed away, slowing down once he noticed Arya trying to catch her breath before she went after the sword again. “Born and raised a lady, looks like to me,” he said, tossing it back to his left hand. “Says she can fight like a man—” Gendry tossed it to his right. “But dances like a gur—”

 

Arya jumped at him with a growl in her throat, and Gendry tripped on the rushes behind his feet. He landed square on his back with Arya on top of him, knocking the air out of both of their lungs. Arya lunged for the sword. Gendry twisted, effectively tangling their limbs together in the rushes as their fingers both struggled for purchase on the sword hilt.

 

“Give it—” Arya ground out, but Gendry snatched her wrists and abandoned all attention on the sword, pinning her down against the ground of the barn and laying triumphantly on top of her with the smuggest looking grin on his dirty soot-stained face. Arya, not thinking but just acting, growled in anger and reached up to bite that smug smile right off his face.

 

Gendry, having experienced kissing before, thought that was what she was trying to do. The bite didn’t hurt as much as it felt _good_ , and he captured her lips with his own in a searing kiss. Arya, though she hadn’t meant for this to happen at all, enjoyed the new sensations as well, and started to kiss him back.

 

She wriggled her hands until he let them go, and then Arya’s hands were in his hair, on his back, scrabbling for purchase. Gendry’s tongue slid in her mouth, hot and slick, and Arya moaned beneath him, arching her back. They hurried to touch each other, cool hands sliding under warm clothes to graze hot skin, and before Gendry knew it his shirt was missing, Arya’s was undone, and her hand was snaking down the front of his pants.

 

They didn’t make love; they were too young for that, but they were exploring and enjoying, and both of them cried out in pleasure as Gendry thrust his slick fingers in Arya and she stroked him until he climaxed on her belly.

 

Gendry fell beside her, utterly exhausted, and breathing heavily. Arya’s chest moved up and down in steady, slow motions. Looking over to her left, she grinned and snatched her sword, rolled on top of Gendry to straddle him and held the practice sword to his throat.

 

“I win,” she said, smirking down at him with her heavy-lidded eyes.

 

Gendry grinned, holding out his arms. “You win, my lady,” he breathed.

 

 

 

_iii. longing_

 

It was dark down here in the caverns deep beneath the ice. Sometimes Bran saw light from the torches, and sometimes he sat in complete and utter darkness and felt as though days had gone by when only a few minutes had passed him. He thought often of home, of Father, Mother, and his brothers and sisters. He felt so alone down here in the dark, but he wasn’t alone.

 

Hodor was here with him, and Jojen as well as Meera. There was also Leaf, and the other Children. The three-eyed crow talked to him mostly, though, and spoke to him of wisdom and days gone by, but mostly Bran found himself thinking of things that he couldn’t have anymore or things that were no longer with him. Sometimes, even, he found himself thinking of Meera. While it should have made him happy, it made him sad.

 

Meera was sad. She and Jojen spent more and more time away from Bran. Meera talked as though Jojen was sick, and Bran hoped he got better. He hoped today was not the day that Jojen died, and then he found himself thinking the same thing tomorrow, and the day after that. Time was strange down here in the caverns beneath the world. Time slowed to a crawl, and every second was like a year.

 

Meera came to Bran. He wasn’t sure if it was day or night; he couldn’t tell down here, anyway. She came bearing a torch. The hollows of her eyes looked sunken, but she was beautiful to Bran. He smiled at her. She tried to smile back.

 

“We’ve explored all the tunnels as far as we could go,” Meera whispered. She never spoke with a full voice anymore. Everything was whispers and quiet breaths.

 

“Are we going to die down here?” Bran asked her, looking at her. He wanted to hold her, and cursed his broken legs as he laid there helpless against the wall.

 

“Not you, Bran,” Meera said with a faint smile, a glint catching in her eye. “Us, maybe.”

 

“I don’t want you to die,” Bran told her, reaching out his hand. He touched her arm, grasping it tightly as his thin fingers would allow him. “I don’t want you to leave me,” he said, and it came out choked and sad. Bran cursed his unsteady voice.

 

Meera laid her hand on top of his. “I won’t leave you,” she said. “Not by choice.”

 

“I don’t want to live forever,” Bran said, “if all I have left are memories and dreams to keep me company in the dark.” His cheeks were hot and wet. He wished he knew how to express what he felt inside. She didn’t understand him. She didn’t know what he was saying.

 

Meera shook her head, scooting closer to him. “I will never be just a memory,” she said. “I will always be with you, Bran. No matter what happens, I will always be with you.”

 

She reached out and touched his cheek, brushing away his fallen tears with her thumb. Meera drew close enough to comfortably embrace Bran, resting her chin atop his head and cradling him to her breast like a mother holding her child. She sang to him of a song from days long past, of love found and lost, of a green world blossoming before turning grey, of whole kingdoms rising and falling, and Bran knew his song would be long and sad and Meera would not be in it forever.

 

 

 

_iv. honesty_

 

“You are my prisoner,” Stannis informed her in his bitter, shriveled voice. Every word he spoke was made of ironclad shackles. It was funny, Asha thought, how she feared his voice more than the man himself or the chains he had put on her wrists and ankles. He was a shrunken shadow of his former self, but his voice still held power. War and the northern winters were no friends of his, Asha deemed. She fared far better than him and on less food, but women in her lands weren’t famers either.

 

“I am, Your Grace,” she answered carefully, always thinking of her words beforehand, always judging them as he might judge them.

 

“Which means your life is in my hands,” Stannis continued, ignoring her, “and if I gave you back your life, your debt to me would be greater than all the worth your people plunder from shore to shore like scavengers and snakes across _my_ lands.”

 

He had a way with words, this one.

 

“Your Grace,” she began, “even if you gave me back my life, my life would still be in your hands.”

 

For once, Stannis finally looked up at her across the dim distance of the tower room. The faint glow of the torches made the shadows dance and stretch across his face, giving his gauntness stronger depth than in the daylight. “Precisely,” he said. He moved to sit down behind his desk.

 

“You’re a savage woman, but you’re a smart woman. You know what I offer is real. My army marches to retake Winterfell. I will have the North. With the North, I will conquer the South and unite all of the kingdoms of Westeros under my rule. I will make you Lady of the Iron Islands, near as a lord as a woman can be. In repayment for my generosity, you and your men and all of your ships will fight for me.”

 

“That’s a lot to ask of a lady,” Asha said. Quickly, she added, “Your Grace.”

 

“Do as I say, and it’s yours,” Stannis ground out. “I’ll give you the night to think it over.”

 

Asha thought about it for a moment, but before he could dismiss her from the tower room, she spoke up. “Queen,” she said slowly. “I want to be Queen of the Iron Islands, Your Grace.”

 

Stannis didn’t laugh. He glared at her. He answered with only one word. “No.”

 

“Queen in title only,” Asha amended with slow and cautious words. “We will keep all of the old customs between lords and their king intact. You may draw up the contracts, and I will even sign in my own blood,” Asha added with relish.

 

Stannis seemed to think about it. He stood straight, a tall dark figure almost handsome in the gloomy light. “How do I know you will keep word, even with a contract?”

 

“You may ask anyone you like, Your Grace,” Asha murmured, staring at him across the distance as she leaned forward in her chair. Her eyes glowed with the light of the fire from the torches, and she smiled softly at him. “I am many things, but a liar isn’t one of them.”

 

 

 

_v. loyalty_

 

“You were there for me,” he whispered, his brow feverish with a sweat, “when everyone else abandoned me . . . ”

 

“It was only a dream, Ser Jaime,” Brienne reminded him, tending to his wounds with as much care as her clumsy hands allowed her. With a sword, she was as skillful as any man and often better, but with ointments and bandages and stitches she had no idea what she was doing. Still, she tried for his sake. She would not let his wounds fester or get any worse. He was going to heal, and he was going to live.

 

“My sister turned on me,” Jaime murmured, his head rolling to the side. He squeezed his eyes shut tightly. “I loved her, and she betrayed me, and my father . . . that bastard. I never wanted to be like him, and he was always trying to make me _be_ him . . . ”

 

“Ser Jaime,” Brienne warned, “you must rest.” She pushed his head down against the pillow with as little force as possible. Jaime protested, but she held him down. “You won’t get better if you don’t rest.”

 

Jaime held up his stump of an arm. “Do you know why I got this?” he asked her, and Brienne looked quizzically at him before ignoring his question.

 

“You are feverish and ill and in need of sleep,” she replied.

 

“It’s fate,” Jaime said. “I made the Stark boy a cripple, and the gods crippled me.”

 

Brienne opened her mouth, but found she could not speak. Brienne believed in the gods, and if it were true, then it would be just by her reckoning. She was not delusional of the man at her side. Brienne remembered what Jaime Lannister was before she ever met him, but he was not the person the world made him out to be. He was no devil, no demon, just a man who made all the wrong decisions and was trying now to make the right ones.

 

A small smile curled at the corner of Jaime’s lips. “See, it’s true,” he said, pointing at her with his one good hand. “Even you believe it.”

 

Brienne swallowed past a catch in her throat. “I believe the gods are just in the end,” she said, “and through them, we learn who we really are.” When she looked down at Ser Jaime, he was staring at her with an expression she had never seen on his face before. “What?”

 

“Kiss me, my lady,” he whispered, his good hand reaching for her cheek, “before I die.”

 

“You’re not going to die,” Brienne said quickly, turning away from his hand as it reached for her face. She grabbed his wrist and held it down against the straw bed to stop another advance. “You aren’t thinking right, ser.”

 

“This is the most right I’ve thought my whole life,” Jaime said. “Kiss me, please.”

 

It was strange, Brienne decided, kissing Ser Jaime’s soft but clammy lips, but her heart thudded in her ribcage and she thought she would stand by him forever if only he asked her.

 

 

 

_vi. understanding_

 

Sansa used to ask a lot of questions when she was younger because she didn’t understand something, but she found herself asking less questions now that she was older. People didn’t often give honest responses, but she learned how to read faces, gestures, and body language. Lord Petyr Baelish was a master of them all, and she learned from the best.

 

When the Hound came for her in the Vale, she only had to take one look at him to know why he was there and his purpose. She asked few questions, and they fled into the night on horseback. They camped at the base of trees, bathed in rivers with just a hung blanket for modesty, and traveled far, far, far.

 

Sansa thought they would never stop. He wasn’t the same as she remembered him. He was softer around the edges. He still had the sharp focus of the Hound in the center, but she saw the chips at the edges of his armor. She clutched to him in the night for warmth, and he didn’t complain.

 

“Why did you come for me?” she asked him finally, looking at him as their small fire played across his face. Sansa feared his face once, but she found it comforting now. They sat side by side conserving warmth, rubbing their hands before the burning twigs and dry branches. He was silent for a long time before he answered her.

 

“It was my responsibility,” he said gruffly.

 

“What made it your responsibility?” Sansa inquired further, though she kept her tone light to keep it from getting too serious and warding him away.

 

The Hound looked down at her. His grey eyes glinted. He shifted in the darkness, turning his gaze away from her once more. “I was you once,” he rasped. “You remember.”

 

Sansa looked down at her hands, rubbing them together and pressing them between her knees. She would never forget the tale he told her of how he got his scars. “Yes, I remember.”

 

“I don’t want you to end up like me,” he said.

 

Sansa remained quiet for a while. As time passed by, she drifted closer to him. She slipped her arm around his without protest and laid her head against his strong shoulder. It was firm like steel, but smooth like a down pillow. Sansa closed her eyes. As she drifted off to sleep, she thought nothing could harm her as long as he was near.

 

 

 

_vii. respect_

 

The whetstone sang against the steel as Ned sharpened his blade, filling the godswood with the ancient song of blade on stone. The big green leaves dripped with fresh water from a rainfall the night before, while the red leaves of the weirwood tree shone like blood in the new dawn’s light. He came here often to reflect, and to pray, in the manner of his forefathers and ancestors. Thousands of years of memories filled this place to the brim and spilled over like the water falling from the leaves to the ground, soaking into the earth and returning to where they came from.

 

He heard her familiar footsteps, and smiled as he looked up. Catelyn was steely but beautiful, and she always carried herself with such dignity. Sometimes he looked at her and thought her stronger than him. He had burdened her with lies she did not deserve, but Ned supposed in the end honor had its limits when it came to family.

 

What was honor, compared to a newborn child in your arms, or a woman’s love.

 

“Catelyn,” he greeted her. After a moment, he asked, “Where are the children?”

 

She gave him a look as if she expected him to say that. “They are having breakfast. Arya is throwing her food again.”

 

Ned did not laugh, but his eyes glittered. “She is a fierce one,” he said. He glanced at Catelyn. “Like her mother.”

 

“Like her father,” Catelyn disagreed, smiling.

 

“What brings you to the godswood?” Ned asked her. “You do not often come here.”

 

“Something is wrong, Ned,” Catelyn ventured slowly, her voice wary at first. “I feel it. Something is coming, but I cannot say what.”

 

Ned reached out his hand to his wife. Catelyn looked down at it, taking it into her own. Her grip was like steel as she clutched onto his hand. “Whatever it is,” he said, “we will face it together.”

 

“And the children?” she whispered.

 

Ned looked up into the face of the weirwood tree. Its white bark looked like old skin, dried out and wrinkled with time. Its red sap looked like blood. He gazed into its eyes and saw the faces of a thousand ghosts staring back at him, the eyes of every Old God, and unnamed things in the darkness peering through sheets of time to get a glimpse into his soul.

 

“They are Starks,” he said. “And winter is coming.”


End file.
